Dynamic Manipulation of a Deformable Linear Object: Simulation and Learning

We show that it is possible to learn an open-loop policy in simulation for the dynamic manipulation of a deformable linear object (DLO) -- e.g., a rope, wire, or cable -- that can be executed by a real robot without additional training. Our method is enabled by integrating an existing state-of-the-art DLO model (Discrete Elastic Rods) with MuJoCo, a robot simulator. We describe how this integration was done, check that validation results produced in simulation match what we expect from analysis of the physics, and apply policy optimization to train an open-loop policy from data collected only in simulation that uses a robot arm to fling a wire precisely between two obstacles. This policy achieves a success rate of 76.7% when executed by a real robot in hardware experiments without additional training on the real task.